Star Wars: Rogue One official cast and plot details

During the Star Wars presentation at Disney’s D23 Expo, Lucasarts took to the stage to reveal the first look at the cast of the anthology film based around the group of Rebel resistance fighters who plan to steal the plans for the Death Star from the Empire, Rogue One. The actors we can see in the picture are Felicity Jones, Diego Luna, Riz Ahmed, Jiang Wen, and Donnie Yen and the feel of the image certainly seems to add a different flavour to what we’ve seen up to now. This rough and ready group look ready to get their hands dirty and do what ever it takes in a film set to bridge the gap between episodes III and IV.

Lucasfilm boss and producer, Kathleen Kennedy, had this to say about Rogue One:

“Rogue One takes place before the events of Star Wars: A New Hope and will be a departure from the saga films but have elements that are familiar to the Star Wars universe. It goes into new territory, exploring the galactic struggle from a ground-war perspective while maintaining that essential Star Wars feel that fans have come to know. Gareth is such an innovative director and I’m so excited to be working with him and the extraordinary ensemble cast he’s selected for Rogue One.”

The Gareth she refers to is of course Godzilla director Gareth Edwards who is currently shooting the movie. He appeared in a short video explaining that he had just shot the first scene and by the looks and sounds of it he is extremely excited to be working on this project.

The press release for the movie also turned up a few more surprises. We learned that Alan Tudyk is joining the cast as a motion capture character and also Mads Mikkelsen has a role in the movie. Here’s the press release:

“The filmmakers have assembled a stellar cast, including Felicity Jones, nominated for an Academy Award® for her leading role in “The Theory of Everything”; Diego Luna, who was featured in 2008’s Oscar®-winning “Milk” and the critically acclaimed “Killing Them Softly”; Ben Mendelsohn, recently nominated for an Emmy® for his leading role in “Bloodline” and co-starring in the upcoming “Mississippi Grind”; Donnie Yen, Hong Kong action star and martial artist who starred in “Ip Man” and “Blade II”; Jiang Wen, who co-wrote, produced , directed and starred in the award-winning “Let the Bullets Fly” and “Devils on the Doorstep”; Forest Whitaker, recently featured in the critically-acclaimed Lee Daniels’ “The Butler” and winner of an Academy Award® for his leading role in 2006’s “The Last King of Scotland; Mads Mikkelsen, who starred in “The Hunt” and was the memorable villain from 2006’s “Casino Royale”; Alan Tudyk, who plays a performance-capture character in “Rogue One,” stars in the soon-to-be-released “Con Man” series and “Trumbo,” which releases this November; and Riz Ahmed, who was recently featured in “Nightcrawler” and starred in the BAFTA-winning film “Four Lions.”

Veteran ILM visual effects supervisor John Knoll, who shares a long history with the Star Wars movies, dating back to the mid-1990s, originated the idea for the movie. Allison Shearmur (“The Hunger Games: Catching Fire,” “Cinderella”), John Knoll, Simon Emanuel (“The Dark Knight Rises,” “Fast & Furious 6”) and Jason McGatlin (“Tintin,” “War of the Worlds”) are executive producers. Kiri Hart and John Swartz (“Star Wars: The Force Awakens”) are co-producers.